Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA) has launched a new digital platform to facilitate easier filing, processing and disbursement of funds and assets.
UFAA Chairman Richard Kiplagat said that the monies in the trust are invested in the government to ensure there is no risk.
Kiplagat said that UFAA looks forward to doubling the number of claims for reunifying.
The authority said that it aims to provide customer-friendly services and to make their service available in Huduma Centers across the country.
He said the authority intends to do away with manual filing of claims to facilitate easier processing and disbursement of unclaimed financial assets in cash, bonds, stocks and other financial assets.
The Authority is also deploying an online holders’ reporting and surrenders system that will make it easier for holders to submit and surrender unclaimed financial assets in their possession.
UFAA Chairman said that the authority will be working with the office of the Auditor-General to facilitate audits of public sector agencies on compliance with unclaimed financial assets reporting and surrender.
UFAA is an authority created under the Unclaimed Financial Assets Act, No 40 of 2011 to administer unclaimed financial assets. UFAA’s primary focus is to receive unclaimed financial assets from the holders, safeguard the assets and reunite the assets to their rightful owner.
A baseline survey report on the current state of unclaimed financial assets was released by Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA) has revealed that the current unclaimed financial assets in the country are estimated at Sh241,105,748,942.
The survey which was conducted to determine the number of holders and estimate the volume of unclaimed financial assets held by each holder and cumulatively across all sectors in the country showed that the current estimated unclaimed financial asset holders who include institutions in the country are 477,112.
Announcing the findings of the survey in Nairobi, UFAA Chief Executive Officer, Mr John Mwangi, explained that the Authority’s mandate is to bring closure to ‘lost and found’ financial assets, receive unclaimed financial assets, safeguard and re-unite the assets with their rightful owners, who at times are not aware of their abandoned treasure.
“UFAA’s performance is based on the number of claimants re-unified. So far the Authority has collected a total of Sh20.3 billion in cash, Sh1.2 billion unit of shares, received 6,000 claims and issued Sh1 billion payouts in 2021,” said Mwangi.
He expressed that the Financial Services Sector has the highest holding of approximately 62 per cent of the total unclaimed financial assets and the projected unclaimed financial assets over the next 5 years is estimated at Sh156 billion.
Explaining that financial assets are declared unclaimed when there is no active involvement by users for a period of 2 years, the CEO said the unclaimed money by the Authority is invested in government securities so as to accrue interest that is channelled to unclaimed Assets Trust Fund.
“UFAA is urging all citizens to claim their financial assets and that of relatives by dialling a short code of *361# or visiting their website,” said Mwangi.
He said the code will help citizens find out whether they have unclaimed financial assets as an original owner or on behalf of a minor, business entity and deceased persons.
In his remarks, UFAA Chairperson, Richard Kiplagat, announced that the Authority has introduced Unclaimed Financial Assets Management (UFAM) System that is designed to facilitate easier filing, processing and disbursement of unclaimed assets through the internet, as well as provide compliance services where UFAA can carry out audit procedures to holding institutions.
“The reunification process has been made easier through the self-service UFAM system to allow a claimant to search for an asset, file a claim, download the required documents and track the claims,” said Kiplagat.
The Chairperson said to favour those with no access to the internet, UFAA has partnered with Huduma Kenya to make asset claiming services available in all Huduma Centers across the country.
“Through a partnership with government entities and technology companies, the Authority will continue with sensitization efforts that help target holders and claimants increase declarations to the authority and re-unification of unclaimed financial assets,” he said.
Kiplagat further urged all institutions that are holders of unclaimed financial assets to submit reports of unclaimed finance that they hold before November 1, 2021.
